Force India Formula One Team Limited, which is strangely located in the United Kingdom, filed a dispute against the registrant of saharaforceindia.com and saharaforceindiaf1.com.

The registrant of these domain names registered the domains the same day the Formula 1 team announced its purchase by Sahara Adventure Sports Limited and the subsequent name change.

Normally you’d think the team would have contacted the registrant and demanded that he turn over the domain names. But Force India took a very different tact, as described by the panelist:

After discovering the Respondent’s registrations of the Disputed Domain Names, the Complainant immediately offered the Respondent INR 8,000 to buy the Disputed Domain Names but this offer was refused. The following day the offer was “sweetened” by the addition of a pair of free domestic air tickets with Kingfisher Airlines, and an all-expenses paid attendance for two people at the Singapore Grand Prix in 2012. These offers were likewise rejected by the Respondent. The Respondent and his wife were also afforded significant hospitality by the Complainant during the 2011 Indian Grand Prix. Subsequently, in December 2011, the Respondent indicated that he would transfer the Disputed Domain Names to the Complainant for USD 7,000. The Complainant then offered USD 10,000 for the Disputed Domain Names together with four other domain names registered by the Respondent being saharaforceindia.in, saharaforceindiaf1.in, saharaforceindia.co.in and . This offer was accepted by the Respondent but, before that agreement could be completed, the Complainant decided to instigate proceedings instead. Curiously, on March 22, 2012 the Complainant then offered the Respondent USD 4,000 for the Disputed Domain Names together with the four Indian domain names. The Respondent refused this offer.

I’m a bit confused about why the team went through so much effort to get domain names it could easily recover through UDRP. I guess it woke up to this fact much later, after it played nice for a long time. (That said, once it agreed to the payment it should have gone through with it.)

ps. this is just one more example how even big companies don’t pay attention to domain names before they announce big deals, new company names etc..
Like these jolla.com guys, like they didn’t start it for real.

jolla is a great name in itself, including association with lajolla ca which is a great city with multi million dollar homes, and many rich tech executives. So either way that name was going to cost someone a lot of money, I would have paid low 4 figures as a reseller had I seen it for sale, prior to knowing about this company.

Sounds to me like neither party realised how the domain game works…and then an educated party (prob Force India’s lawyers)was called in and…game over for greedy squatter. Got what he deserved – nothing; should’ve had the brains to take the lesser amount once the game was up.
And I disagree with you Andrew when you say that once Force India had agreed to a price they should’ve gone through with it…if you found out the Rolex you were buying was the same one that got stolen from your house last year (hypothetical situation) would you still follow through with the deal?

@JamesD – you are wrong, they had an agreement which means the previous owner could actually sue them now for breach of contract and you know what, he should. Yes he squatted on a name, but the company agreed to the terms of a deal. Putting his squatting stuff aside he does have a case. Anyway, hate all you want on the squatter, but the way things are going most of you will be considered squatters too. Stuff like where Facebook can get away with taking Teachbook to court and winning the case because “book” was in the domain name… That is a joke and should make all of us mad enough to take action. The more companies that get away with stuff like that, the less likely you will be able to hold onto your generics. Shame is also on Teachbook for not sticking up to the man and fighting the battle. These cases are doing nothing but setting up the framework for the majority of the generic .com names to eventually be stolen.

@Dave – you missed the point, settling is not the answer as it can be used future cases across the board. For example, you run a site and business named DaveZanBook.com and you review books and sell them from your site. You don’t even offer a Facebook social integration on that site. The next thing you know FB comes after you because you have a domain with “book” in the naming structure. You probably feel very secure in that you have no tie in with FB related stuff, however FB submits prior evidence of cases it won or that the “infringer” settled and it builds more credit in the court’s eyes that they deserve the name and you do not. I realize this is a stretch, but its also a possibility and one that will continue to increase if the little guys keep giving in.

I suppose it feels like a victory on Facebook’s part being able to get what they want. Look around, though, and see if they’re pursuing others with “book” in their domain names that DON’T have anything to do with social networks.

And let’s say I put up DaveZanBook.com to sell or review books, then so what? Facebook won’t go after me because my site has nothing to do with social networks, and they WILL pursue me if I made my site ABOUT social networks. (unless I make a non-commercial review site maybe, though that’s debatable…)

While there are hardly any legally-decided cases on specifically this one other than maybe a few UDRPs, there are enough similar legal decisions (eBay vs. Perfume Bay comes to mind) drawing the lines on what one can and can’t do.

Some squatters likewise are holding inquirer.com hostage. Which is very ironic, since inquirer.net is a Filipino news site (a very good one) that linked me to this story. Facebook is raiding innocent bystanders as well as squatters–worse..McDonald’s has forced businesses into changing names that have no restaurant-related activities and, worse, often have family names that predate the existence of the fast food chain.

I always assume that companies are alert, about the domain names and similar things. But it seems to be that that’s not alway true. The company could be a little more careful, although I can understand why this mistake is made.